magistrates and deputies sat in one assembly. For a time no law went into force without the express sanction of the body of freemen. The London merchants did not regard with favor the religious peculiarities of the colony. They considered them a hindrance to its growth. From time to time there were additions from abroad, a considerable proportion of which were from Leyden. Robinson died in 1625, not having been able to carry out his wish to join the portion of his people who were making for themselves a home beyond the sea. In 1624, the merchants sent over sixty persons, among whom was a minister, Lyford by name, who not only calumniated the colony in his letters, but set about an attempt to establish in it the Church of England. His treacherous character was brought to light, and he was compelled to leave. The colonists were under a contract of service and partnership with the mercantile "Adventurers." It was an improvement when an acre of land was given to each head of a family to cultivate for himself. There was a much more beneficial change when, in 1627, the resident adults-with the exception

Lyford.

Purchase

and land.

of a few who were not considered worthy of of the stock the privilege-became possessed, by purchase, of the stock and land. There could now be an equitable distribution of the common property among the settlers. In 1630, a patent from the Council of New England granted to Bradford and his associates the territory between defined boundaries-the Cohasset River on the north, and the domains of Pokanoket on the west. give them increased means of trading and fishing, a tract of land fifteen miles wide, on each shore of the Kennebec River, was ceded to them. But there was a reservation which gave to the Council the right to establish such a government as they might wish to ordain. There was no certainty that Gorges might not conclude to institute a

To

government for all New England, of which he should be the head. There was still greater danger of legislative interference by the Crown. Against this the patent of the Plymouth settlers afforded no safeguard.

The colony gradually extended, mainly along the coast. In 1641, there had come to be eight towns, with a population of two thousand five hundred.

Growth

In all but and character one of them there were educated ministers. of the colony. A half century after the landing at Plymouth there were fifty towns and about eight thousand people. The Plymouth settlers established trade with the natives on the Kennebec and Penobscot, and to some extent in the valley of the Connecticut. With all their industry, so sterile was the soil that the colony remained poor. The consequence was that as the pulpits became vacant it became difficult to fill them with a learned ministry, and down to 1670 there appears to have been no provision for public education. The spirit of the colony in dealing with theological dissidents and fanatics was comparatively mild. In 1657, it was enacted that Quakers, who were the occasion of much disturbance, should be excluded from becoming freemen. Later, in 1671, it was provided that freemen should be sober and peaceable in their behavior, and orthodox in "the fundamentals of religion." But the "Old Colony," as it was called, through its entire history avoided harsh measures in dealing with theological malcontents, and not seldom served as an asylum for persons whose religious tenets or practices brought upon them discomfort in the neighboring community of Massachusetts Bay. Plymouth had obtained its lands by fair purchase of the Indians. Earnest efforts were put forth to convert them to Christianity. In 1675, about the time when King Philip's War broke out, it is estimated that within the limits of the colony there were not less than five or six

Brewster.

hundred "praying Indians." Brewster, the patriarch of the colony, died in 1644. He had had the care of the church, officiating as preacher as well as ruling elder, until 1629, when Ralph Smith, a regular minister was settled. An abridged catalogue of Brewster's library is extant. It speaks well for his intellectual character, for there is no doubt that the books were kept, not for show, but for use. It comprised four hundred volumes, of which forty-eight were folios and one hundred and seventy-seven were quartos. Besides numerous commentaries on the Bible, and other books of theology, we find on the list "The Prince" of Machiavelli, Bacon's "Advancement of Learning," Seneca's writings-these all in English. Among the non-ecclesiastical authors there is found one poet of merit, George Withers. Eleven of the books were printed by Brewster himself in Leyden.

Towns.

It is a characteristic feature of New England from the beginning that its inhabitants dwelt together in towns. In this peculiarity, so fruitful in its consequences, political and social, there was a broad contrast with the Virginia settlements, where, as we have seen, the large landholders lived apart from one another on their estates. The character of the soil and of its products in New England was one main cause of this difference. Another reason was the interest of the people in religion, and their ecclesiastical system. The town was an organization for united worship, as well as for the conduct of secular affairs. The inhabitants fixed their abodes usually near the "meeting-house." Of the significance of the town in its political bearings, more will be said hereafter.

A complete account of the doings of the Council of New England would contain the record of various grants of land, not seldom conflicting with one another, and of

Mason's

several attempts at settlement which had but small results. In such proceedings Gorges was actively concerned. In 1622, in connection with John Magrant of New son, he obtained the grant of the territory, Hampshire. which they named Laconia, between the Merrimac and the Kennebec, and extending to "the river of Canada." Two settlements were begun where are now Portsmouth and Dover, but for a long time were with difficulty kept in being. The Council undertook to divide its territory in New England among its individual members. To one of the twenty a portion about Cape Ann was allotted, but the patent for it was transferred by purchase to Plymouth. There a fishing-station was established by merchants in the west of England. The settlers there were suffered by Plymouth to remain. Conant, who had left Plymouth out of dislike for the religious system of the Pilgrims, became their head. Lyford and another delinquent, Oldham, both of whom had been expelled from Plymouth, joined them. In 1626, the Dorchester merchants dissolved their partnership and Conant at Sa- gave up their settlement. Only Conant and a

lem. few others remained there. These withdrew to Naumkeag, afterwards called Salem. The short-lived activity of this unincorporated Dorchester company was succeeded by another undertaking, which took its rise in the same place, but was quite different, both in its purposes and results.

The Puri

tion.

The great Puritan emigration which gave rise to the settlements on Massachusetts Bay was undertaken, not by "Separatists," but by members of the Church tan emigra of England who had never broken off their connection with it, or called in question the lawfulness of a national church. James I., when he was on the way from Scotland to London, was met by the "Millenary petition," in which upwards of eight hundred

Tyranny of
James I.

ministers of the Established Church prayed for the aboli tion of pluralities and kindred abuses, and besought that certain practices, such as the sign of the cross in bap tism, the interrogatories to infants, the use of the cap and surplice, might be discarded. At the subsequent conference at Hampton Court, the Puritan divines whom the King selected to be the spokesmen of their party, were treated with insult and derision. "If this be all that your party have to say," said the King, “I will make them conform, or I will harry them out of this land, or else worse.' He took care to keep his word. He is not to be blamed for refusing on that occasion to incorporate in the creed of the Anglican Church new doctrinal articles, rigidly Calvinistic in their tenor, nor can he be blamed for not imposing the desired modifications in the liturgy on those of his subjects who might be in conscience averse to them. It is another question, however, whether he might not have granted a measure of liberty in matters of ritual without creating fresh contentions and divisions. There is no doubt that his spirit in dealing with so large a body of educated and earnest preachers, whose services it was most important to retain, was insolent and arbitrary. Thenceforward the

Puritan clergy either conformed, unwillingly and under protest, to the particular ceremonies of which they disapproved, or abstained from doing so, preferring to endure the appointed penalties until a better day should come. Thus the Puritans were composed of a conforming and a non-conforming class. In their long struggle during the whole reign of James, and in the early years of his successor, in proportion as their hope of getting freedom for themselves and of making England what they thought it ought to be, waned, they would naturally revolve the question whether it might not be feasible to found a new community, to be modelled after their own ideas, beyond